From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Thu Sep 26 2002 - 20:56:44 MDT
This is already so embedded there's not much point going on, but...
At 04:40 PM 9/26/02 -0700, Lee Corbin wrote:
>>> Iraq is playing with everyone's favorite ball, and
>>> maybe the US will get it, or maybe more
>>> kids can play with it if Iraq gets creamed.
[...]
[me:]
>> If the situation were reversed, would it
>> seem peachy for the other kids to cream US so more kids could play with its
>> favorite ball?
[Lee:]
>Actually, I was thinking of "oil". Is that what you
>were thinking?
Yes.
>"Peachy?" Why the attitude? ;-)
An Aussie's attempt to emulate the `Blackboard Jungle'/`West Side Story'
tone of the `creaming' parable.
>I perceive the underlying power politics as
>*exactly* what happens in a lawless barbarian
>tribe or in a school yard when no teachers are
>around.
In other words, the biggest bully tends to take the other kids' toys when
he's used up his own, as I agreed. Should the smaller kids, who wish to
hang on to their own toys, build a sling-shot, they'll get creamed before
they can deploy it. On some level, the bully assumes that this is the
proper order of things; in fact you can hear him giving sermons every day
to this effect--he's got some clever sycophants to write his script. But
would he feel that playground might-is-right rules are *really* right if he
were in the reverse position? Lee, I think, would reply that this question
requires all the players to jump outside their sandbox and grow up. I hope
they do, because I'm cowering here in the corner hoping none of the buggers
notice me and shove my head down the toilet. The cocky little twerp who
runs my own small gang from the wrong side of the tracks (the `Take it,
It's Yours' gang) already has his own head stuck right up the bum of the
bully, so I'm not expecting any help from that quarter.
Damien Broderick
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